Phil Reisman: New dog makes this Christmas special

Dec. 24, 2012

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Six months ago, a reader emailed me a cartoon drawn by Wiley Miller. It depicted a saintly, robed figure looking down at planet Earth from the clouds of heaven.

He tells an angel: “Truth be told, if it wasn’t for dogs, I would have blown it up years ago.”

The reader, whose name is Louise Kobiliak, sent me the Miller cartoon out of sympathy for the loss of my dog, Amy. I can’t help but smile every time I look at it.

At age 13, Amy was a senior dog. She was loved and had had a full and wonderful life. But letting her go was extremely painful — and the day she died happened to be a Wednesday which meant that I had a column to write for the next day’s paper.

I was in no mood to write. Perhaps I was in shock, as odd as that may sound. I may have some things to answer for in life, but surely one of my lesser sins is a sentimental tendency to anthropomorphize my animal friends. They become my “boys” and “girls,” like they’re people with four legs.

Sometimes I like to pretend that they can talk and imagine out loud what their voices would sound like if they could expound upon a wide array of topics — from the weather to their favorite music. We have a female cat who “sings” Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” and can “recite” classic lines from “The Godfather,” e.g., “Do you know who I am? I’m Moe Green! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!”

My wife thinks this is pretty weird, and I have to admit she’s right.

There’s a price to pay for this eccentricity, however. It’s kind of asking for it. I realize that I’m only further setting myself up for the profound sense of grief that comes when they die.

Anyway, like I was saying … on the day my dog died I had to write a column. No excuses. The show must go on.

So, somewhat self-indulgently, I wrote about what was weighing on my mind, which was the death of my good and loyal friend, Amy. My girl.

The response was overwhelming. I have written thousands of columns over the years, covering just about every topic imaginable, but I have never received anywhere near the number of letters, emails and phone calls that arrived in response to the column about Amy. I heard from old friends and kind strangers. Numbering in the hundreds, all of the messages contained heart-felt expressions of sympathy and many of them included touching personal stories about the loss of a beloved cat or dog.

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I saved each and every note.

Why am I bringing all this up? Well, for a couple of reasons.

First, I was reminded of Amy and the Wiley Miller cartoon when I read about the K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry at Lutheran Church Charities — a Chicago-based group that traveled 800 miles to Newtown, Conn. Seven dogs were brought along to provide a sense of peaceful reassurance for the town’s grief-stricken citizens, particularly the surviving children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Dogs have healing powers. They help make us whole — and they are a good excuse for saving the planet with all its problems.

The other reason for bringing this up is that the very least I owe a personal Christmas Day update to all the good people who took the time to write.

I’ll cut to the chase — we got a new dog. He is a beautiful, 40-pound, 14-month-old shepherd mix who came to us through Larchmont Pet Rescue via West Virginia.

We named him Roger.

I won’t go into mushy detail about Roger. Suffice to say he has great joie de vivre and is an enthusiastic face licker.

Our two cats are not wild about him at this point.

Both have threatened to resign from their posts, and one has not been seen for three weeks. (She’s the one we nicknamed “Mrs. Rochester” because she is rarely seen, except in the attic.)

Since he joined us earlier this month, Roger has had only one mishap. He accidentally backed into our fully decorated Christmas tree and knocked it over.

That made it official: Roger is now a fully initiated member of the family.